Rugby Sevens crew (L to R): Chris, Sash, Me, Nathan, Steve

Take one international sports event, add six dashing young men in costumes, a lot of drinking, and what you have is a recipe for total madness.

Sunday was the IRB Rugby Sevens, my esteemed associates and I donned various costumes and headed along. Our crew consisted of a Priest, a Convict, a Pig, Shrek, and Elvis representing all that is good and true about New Zealand. My claim to fame is that I, dressed as Elvis, was approached by the BBC to do a spot on TV, so the commentator did his lines, then they cut to me singing “It’s now or never” (classic Elvis), also Chris (the Priest), and I were on the big screen at the match, which also happened to be televised across our great land. New Zealand also won the event, go team.

Easily the funniest day ever, and we had people coming to take photos with us all over the place – I feel like a bonafide celebrity, heh. Got some great photos, check out the link:

http://flickr.com/photos/marksteele/sets/72157600273868099/

"Supporting" The Marathon Runners

The London Marathon was yesterday; today I am sore, bruised and have little cuts all over my feet and hands. This would be fine if I had actually been participating in the marathon, unfortunately however, my injuries were sustained during a rather chaotic water fight with some local kids in our driveway in the late afternoon.

The London Marathon goes right past my flat, so some friends and I set up shop in the backyard with water guns and buckets of water and blasted the unsuspecting runners as they went past, it’s probably the only time you can spray innocent unsuspecting people with water and have them be thankful for it. Out of the 35,000 odd people who went past our place, only three or four people seemed to take offence, some one threw half a banana which managed to hit me in the side of the head, someone spat at us (thankfully they missed), and we had a few empty bottles lobbed over the wall, but mostly people appreciated we were doing our part to make London a better place!

Later in the afternoon, as the final dregs of the runners went past, some local kids were roaming in the streets with squirt guns. With a bucket full of water at my side, and little else to do with it, I opted to dump the cold liquid over my unsuspecting victims which then rapidly escalated in to a two hour rampage in the driveway.

I read somewhere once, that anything you enjoyed doing as a 10 year old, you’ll probably still enjoy now, and at least in this situation that turned out to be true, as the water fight turned out to be the most fun I’ve had in a long time. The kids were quick, and there was many, but I blasted them with everything I had, two guns, assassin style. They were so small too, I could pick them up, so occasionally I’d grab one, turn them upside down and swung them around by the feet. After I’d dumped one of the kids in to a big skip full of cardboard, I saw one of their parents came out the house, I presumed I was going to get an earful for terrorising their children, turns out they just wanted to offer me a drink for keeping their kids entertained all afternoon!

Waterfight Opponents

I had a bizarre email over the weekend too, a Spanish art student emailed me and said he was in his final year at art school, and was preparing a piece focused on the human face, especially the ears, he had found my pictures online and wanted to know if he could use one them in his project. My flatmates thought he’s probably some dodgy pervert with an ear fetish, but I thought it was funny as hell, so I told him to go for it. After consenting for my likeness to be used, I got another email asking if I could send him more pictures of my ears, in particular close ups of someone else pulling my lobes.

Ah… No, I think not. Perhaps my flatties were right after all…

It’s been a busy few months since returning from my travels in the later part of last year, I completed a ten day vipassana meditation course upon returning to England, which was quite an experience, and wasn’t really at all what I was expecting, I also did a month of full-time study for the PRINCE2 Practitioner Project Management certification, which eight weeks after actually sitting the exam, I am happy to report I got my results last week, and I passed! A friend of mine has been a project manager for about ten years and has failed the exam three times, so it’s actually quite an accomplishment. I’m very happy, and it’s the ticket I needed to shift out of technical support and in to something both more lucrative and more interesting. Watch this space.

Backyard BBQ. We're so pretty.

Travelwise, I’m planning my next major trip now, some friends and I will be spending two months in Africa in the middle of next year, hopefully accompanied by my younger sister Lisa and my cousin Michael too. The plans are basic at best at the moment, but will most likely be spending time in Uganda to see the gorillas, and time in Botswana, Madagascar, Rwanda and South Africa too. Also looking at going to visit my good friends Tony and Wendy in Curacao, Venezuela for a week or two this coming July. Will be a good opportunity to soak up some sunshine, do a little scuba diving and smoke fine Cuban cigars in Havana!

As always, I love to hear what you’ve all been up to, so keep those emails coming!

Much love,

Mark

Blog: http://marksteele.co.nz
Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/marksteele

Admittedly, I do enjoy a match of football, but don’t really have a ‘team’, so much. If pushed I’ll say I support Chelsea, because it seems to me, if I have to pick a team, why not pick one that’s good and it looks like they might win something? Inevitably though, this response usually gets a scornful reception, apparently it seems, simply supporting the winning team is not the English way of choosing an allegiance.

On occasion, when I do watch a match, I generally like to do so down the pub with a Guinness in hand, and have never felt compelled to part with a couple of hundred pounds to see a match in the flesh; however my newest flatmate managed to borrow two season passes for the Arsenal vs Blackburn the other week.

The seats were amazing, we were in row four, in front of the press boxes, and almost close enough to touch the grass. The game itself, a nil all draw, was great to watch, although, of course, a few goals would have made it a lot more exciting!

Congregation next to Westminster Abbey. London Eye and Big Ben in the distance.

Waitangi Day is the national day of New Zealand, it celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document, back in 1840.

In New Zealand, it’s a total non-event, everyone gets the day off work and nobody thinks any more about it. London on the other hand, it’s a totally different story. Thousands of New Zealanders swarm the streets drinking beers and scaring the locals, until finally the madness concludes with a haka next to Westminster Abbey.

A few shots from Waitangi Day in London:

http://flickr.com/photos/marksteele/sets/72157594515940427/